3.05.2008

If you missed it,

The Henri Cartier-Bresson documentary The Impassioned Eye will run again on Sundance at the following times:

Wednesday March 5 at Midnight
Monday March 10 at 6PM
Friday March 28 at 12:15PM

The photos are striking, but watching his thoughts slowly float down about photography is the real value of watching. Plus, he speaks so slowly, you'll feel like a French speaking genius. He's elderly, and his steps are deliberate now, but he is not fragile in spirit. He is almost boyish at times, still excited about art, the city, humanity and music.

He leafs through the pages of a book that kept him company in a prison camp and shows a water color, reading from the back, "a watercolor done to keep me calm while waiting for my papers in Lyon."

Watching is like visiting with a family member as they go through a box of family photos. You get the sense that we're all in his family.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the documentary.

"I've always had a passion for painting. When I was a child, I painted Thursdays and Saturdays. The rest of the time I dreamt about it."

"To question by looking and a sense of form. People think, think, think. In all directions, but they think."

"What counts is geometry and structure. Everything where it should be. To me geometry is the foundation. Everybody has feelings."

"My God, how I miss Mexico. The intensity of passion."

"Portraits are the most difficult. Everything is so fleeting."

"Africa made a great impression on me and against colonialism. It's atrocious."

"Basically, you just have to make people forget the camera. It's no different for you."

"So many memories on these pieces of paper. An accumulation of things. "

"A photo is like the stab of a knife. Painting is meditation."

1 comment:

A's da said...

"A photo is like the stab of a knife. Painting is meditation." Maybe for the photographer and the painter. But looking at well crafted photography can be pretty good meditation, too, no?